GameSkinny’s sister site, Guild Launch, is having their 2013 Dragon Slayer Awards. Each nominee is community chosen and the final winner is based off votes from the public. Voting ends on September 2nd and attendees to Dragon Con will be able to vote from the convention floor (I’ll be there if anyone wants to say hello).
This year Shroud of the Avatar: Forsaken Virtues has been nominated for best community management team. Shroud of the Avatar is an upcoming fantasy RPG developed by Richard Garriott and is aimed to release sometime in next year. The game was put up on Kickstarter on March 8th of this year. At the end of 30 days the game was greenlit and had doubled its $1,000,000 goal.
Community management can make or break a game, especially one that relies on crowd sourcing. Let’s see what made Shroud of the Avatar’s team successful.
Interactions with the Community
SotA success can be attributed to their treatment of the fans. Gina “FireLotus” Dionne, SotA’s community manager had this to say,
“I’m looking forward to my continued role in building a strong community where the players and Developers will have an unprecedented ability to communicate with each other, as well as my upcoming role as a content writer for Shroud”.
And this community is the reason why SotA was greenlit on Kickstarter. The first demo of the game was shown recently at Rooster Teeth’s RTX in Austin, Texas. In fact, in preparation of the game Shroud of the Avatar has asked fans to contribute to the game with art. According to a recent update,
“We want our players to have a hand in creating content for the game”.
This shows a passion for the fans and the player of the game and allows them to have a chance to influence the way the game is designed.
Social Media
Shroud of the Avatar also runs a collection of social media accounts. This allows fans to get instant updates and ask questions on the progress of the game. In fact, on the official Facebook, Forum, and Twitter important announcement are made. One of which was yesterday’s Google Hangout, under the tag #LBSotA_Hangout. The Hangout was with the developers of the game. Fans were able to directly talk to Richard Garriott on his vision of Music Composition for SotA.
Events like these show a desire to go above and beyond the normal standard of community interactions.
Overall
Shroud of the Avatar has definitely created a strong community, which is key to maintaining a thriving game. If you want to cast your vote for SotA or any other nominee, be sure to check out Guild Launch.
